On Assignment Blog

I am back home now and getting some much needed rest, but I am also working on several presentations of my photos to be accompanied by music, much as invitations have been done to our parties.

Well, I finished my last critique with Carlan today and he is the one that did my first critique.

After flipping through each of the top 20 photos from yesterdays shoot, he said it would be a difficult decision to work through to get the top 5 of the day. Each time he came to a new shot he provided positive comments and said that I had a great day on this assignment. I was happy with the work and even one of my panorama shots made it into the top 5.

A panorama shot is taking 2+ shots and then stitching them together in Adobe Photoshop. I took several series yesterday and two made it into my top 20, but the colors of one of them was much better. I did add some hue to it, but this is something that pretty much needs to be done to most shots when shooting in raw.

I have done several other panoramas since we learned about how to do them earlier this week, but I just was not as happy with them and figured I would play with them some to help them look better when I got home. And, with the ability to print up to 13x19 on my printer, I think that they will look really nice.

This will be a good way to take some shots of our yard and see how they come out with the panoramic shots. I have wanted some way to show the yard in a better way rather than just a series of pictures and let people try to picture it when looking at the shots individually.

We have also learned how to do High Dynamic Range (HDR) but I have not been successful with that as of yet. It is something to try a few more times and see how it goes once I get home. I think it will be interesting to try with some flower/botanical shots.

During the class critique where each of the instructors may provide feedback on the photos as well, I had some very good feedback. But, when I had to select my favorite, which was the buggy shot, two instructors added a photo to be used for the final presentation that will take place tonight. There have been some cases where they would add an additional photo for someone, but this is the first time that someone has received 3 for the final presentation for a single assignment.

There was one setting that a number of people did and I used it as well. But it did not make it into the top 5 as Carlan thought I should show a broader range of work. The image is the view through the Wagon Wheel and it is my additional piece for today’s postings.

While there is a tremendous amount of work involved in doing a workshop like this, it is definitely worth the time, effort and cost. If you have ever wondered about taking this sort of class, I would definitely encourage you to do so!

At the final dinner was held at the Loreto In and Spa. This appeared to be a very nice facility and would be a good place to stay!

There were 5 tables at the dinner and it was a very lively discussion at our table which included Jerry and Reid Callanan, the Director of the Santa Fe Workshop. One of the workshop participants mentioned that she had goggled everyone that would be attending the workshop and she came with a lot of concern about the various levels of experience that people demonstrated from her searches. What made this very interesting was Reid made a reference to my web site. I would not have expected anyone at his level to know that!

Jen and Dottie our two very able and helpful assistants did a fun slide show showing people in the class and the instructors as well. It was played with some very fun music and everyone got a good laugh out of the presentation.

The next presentation was of our #1 picks from each day. It was very rewarding to see each image on the large screen and to see the progression of how everyone increased in their ability over the course of the week. At the end of this presentation, Reid said that in his position he has seen many photos, and so with that basis, he is always very critical of photos. But, in seeing these images, he was truly moved by some of the work done by this class.

We have one more class on Saturday as a wrap up to the week. It has definitely been a very good week and it has made me think a lot about my photography, what I want to do with it and how to challenge myself to grow even more. If you are at all interested or thinking it would be worthwhile to attend a photography workshop, then I would highly recommend attending the Santa Fe Workshops. I would definitely like to come back again!

One thing I have noticed when working with the images on here, they seem to be losing some of their color and I believe I know an answer to that so will work to correct that in the very near term.

"Old Buggy"

This was the one that I selected as my favorite of the day. This subject was not used by anyone else that made it to the Top 5 selections.

I did a number of variations of the buggy, but this was the only shot that I liked from the series.

This gentleman is 80 years old and still does modeling and extras in movies.

He was very fun to work with as he would tell all of us that we should consider changing our F stops since the light had changed, or perhaps we should move to another angle.

He knows his photography!

"One Horse Town"

This is the panorama scene that I mentioned. This particular image is composed of 3 different pictures which have been merged or stitched together to form one image.

"Two Heads"

This image shows the horse that was used by one of the models as well. He was a very friendly horse and was very content to just stand still while people were taking his picture.

I think we interrupted his nap as he was yawning a lot! I got some pictures of his yawns which might appear at a later date!

"Wagon Wheel with Church"

This was a fairly popular item in peoples' photos. I really liked this one a lot and have even made it into a black and white version which turned out and may be used in the future as well.

I just finished my critique with Jerry who has a new book out on Lightroom and Photoshop. As of this morning we can actually start doing some editing in both programs. We tried a few things and several of them worked, but it was just doing a vignette with the camera lens rather than anything major. But, just doing this made a big change in the appearance of the image.

All of the shots yesterday were taken in manual mode and his one criticism was to do more framing in the lens and not have so much of it close to the center of the frame which I knew, but working with the new lens it is harder to do.

One thing that has been very interesting over the course of the week is how the critiques have changed from technical elements to composition and how to work with making it right in the camera to start with and to some extent the programs to finish off. The instructors have urged us to shot in RAW mode which I was doing, but as of now they are saying that all shots will take some manipulation after taking the shots. But, as I have found, it takes a lot less to work through them than it did before. And, have some introduction to more workflow within Lightroom has really helped. I even learned a few new tricks when we were going through my images this morning. One thing about photography and technology, it is always changing and there is always room to improve!

So far this week I have added one extra picture that I really liked, but it is going to be a harder choice today as when Jerry and I went through my top twenty we had 8 to start off with and then had to eliminate from there. Actually, the one I have added was not even in the top 8, but I do like the style of the picture.

Once I return home, I will be selecting some of the top ones to publish to the web site. Watch for that mail!

Our assignment for today was going out to the Movie Ranch where we would have models dressed in period costumes. We would work with the models some and work with the set of the town.

The ranch has been used in a number of different films, such as Silverado, Wyatt Earp and I believe that they said 3:10 to Yuma as well.

Each of the models has worked in film industry as well and they were very patient with us. One of the models, Don, is 80 years old and he would even tell people when they would need to change their F stop, or that the light was changing and maybe they should move to such and such an angle. He was quite the character!

I did a number of portraits as I have not really worked with people in my photography. While it was a good experience and I think some of my shots were good, I think I will stick with my macro and landscape photography.

We came back from the ranch and had a late dinner at the San Francisco Bar and Grill. If you are ever in Santa Fe, make a point of going there for dinner.

Friday is our final critique and there will not be an assignment to do and then Saturday we leave to our respective homes. It has been a very good week and very tiring. Everyone has said that they have learned a lot and plan on taking additional classes.

As usual, the pictures from today will be loaded tomorrow morning and there may even be some model shots in this group as well.

"Lighted Grass"

This is one of my favorite of this group. I am waiting to see how it projects to determine if it is my overall favorite from the photos under review.

Once this was projected onto the large screen, this was my favorite, but Plume was also pretty nice!

"Oil Painting"

This is the detail of a sign painted in oil which I thought was very interesting, especially with the macro lens.

"Plume"

All three on this top line are contenders for my favorite photo of the day. It will be interesting to see how each of them projects onto the large screen.


"Sky" I have always wanted to do a sky shot and have it work. I actually had two of them yesterday that worked, so there is always hope!	"Smile" This is a single mother of two who just moved to Santa Fe and is working on her dissertation for her doctorate from USF which she hopes to have finished up within the next year. She has her first chapter draft complete, and intends to have the first 3 chapters of 5 completed by the end of January.	"White Flower" This is my extra shot for today. What I thought was interesting about this shot was the way the flower was growing against the gate. This just did not make the cut due to the differences in the type of shots that I did today.

I have just had my first critique with Robb who is the primary instructor for this class. Since I had completed most of my reviews prior to class we were able to spend some significant amount of time together.

As many of you may know, macro photography is my true love in photography, but I definitely want to do more of the landscape photography and I now know what it is that I need to do different as we talked about the differences between my landscape and macro and what it is that I need to do.

Robb was really impressed with my macro work in terms of composition, coloration and overall the way that it draws the viewer into the image. The one that he was the most impressed with was the yellow flower which I have named O’Keefe Two. When we had the class presentations, there were a lot of ohs and ahs when that image appeared on the screen. One of his challenges to me was to do some people photography. He felt that since I am very easy to talk with and non threatening that I would make an excellent people photographer. That is something I have never thought of trying as I sometimes feel that people clutter up the picture. No offense is meant to anyone! Robb’s challenge for the week was to go out and get some people shots. My thought was I had to think about that one.

After lunch, Carlan met with me to review some more of my work, and he felt that my landscape photography was very good at establishing a mood and some of it would make good stock photography.

Both Robb and Carlan wondered why I had not purchased a true macro lens until now and were surprised that I had done the work that I had with just a close-up addition to a regular lens.

When I asked Carlan for his advice on what I should do to improve, he felt that I should just get out and do more, especially with the macro lens. His advice was to only use it for the next 6 months and really learn how to view the world through that lens.

He also thinks that I should give myself a project for 6-9 months on doing just a series of water drops. He was impressed with the work that I had done with these already and thinks that it would make a good project with the new lens. He would like to see it when completed!

Our assignment for today was to go along Canyon Road which is a few restaurants and nothing but galleries. It is a very narrow street and just goes and goes. The general assignment was to take pictures, but we could not do any of the sculptures as we had done them before. That was a real clear assignment! My interpretation was just do anything, but don’t repeat yourself. And, considering I was going to be shooting macro, well, I couldn’t get any more different there if I tried!

The one thing that I did challenge myself to was the most obvious thing was to do flowers and plants. That just seemed to obvious so I thought I would see what else I could do with macro. While people sounded pretty good, I needed to get more familiar with the lens before I subjected anyone to that!

The bus dropped half at the bottom of the street and the rest of us were dropped at the top of the street. When he presented the assignment, he said that there was someone with a new macro lens and that person should probably just work with that lens. Man, just put a little pressure on a guy! And still do people shots? Yeah, right! They better be REAL patient people!!

My new photo partner and I thought we would get off at the bottom of the street since the sun would be better that way. But, we were in our usual seats at the back of the bus and when it came time to get off, we got blocked because so many got off before us.

Well, I had put on my macro lens and thought I would see what I could find. I did get a number of shots, but my hand started giving out and shaking. Since macro lenses do not have image stabilization built into them I decided to change lenses and do some “regular” photography.

Well, partway down the street several of us came across 3 adults and two children. We got some very interesting shots of them, plus I even managed to get a few shots of a dog that had just survived a life threatening illness. The vet still does not know what caused it, other than she had seizures and then they over medicated her and she had a few more problems, but, she is healthy now and is more active than she ever was before.

I never did make it down to the other end of the street and some of the people that were walking up the street asked if we were the part of the same group that were at the other end of the street as there were about 5 of us in close proximity as they were walking up the street towards us.

My shots from the day before are posted on the web site, and my favorite is the yellow flower shot – O’Keefe Two.

On Thursday we are going to the Movie Ranch. This is where Silverado was shot as well as many other movies. According to the bus driver there is a movie on the Encore channel this week that was shot there as well. This will be another long day, as after the individual and class critiques then we will head out there and we will not get back until late tonight.


Robb has a tendency to name pictures, so I will provide his name on most of these shots. This one was named Cheerleader due to the many branches on the cactus. I just called it a cactus shot.	"The Head" This was a macro shot and I thought it was an interesting configuration when I took it, but it was not until I was viewing it on the computer that it looked like a head.	"Pathway" Robb was very happy with all of the macro work and thought the colors and the way this lead you into the picture was very good.


"Cartoon Character" Due to the many "arms" on this one, it was named the cartoon or monster character. Guess there is an influence of two young boys on some of his perspective? My name was tree and shadow, not as original, guess to much technical background of late influencing me.	"O'Keefe Two" This one he did not have a name for as he just was impressed with the quality of the image even though there is no real focused point in the flower. There would have been if a breeze had not come along at the time. Never did get a really focused picture of it!	"Reaching" Each day I will include one of my favorites that did not make it into the top five. This was one I liked more than the Headshot, but during the individual critique Robb made the point that there would be a lot of similar shots to this so do something unique. Well, surprising enough, there was nothing quite like this one as most people did not go low and shoot up which was his strongest challenge to people.

If you think that taking a photography workshop is easy, change your mind, or better yet, come and take one yourself!

Yesterday we left the hotel at 7:45 and went to the campus where we spent several hours selecting our top five photos and then received our first individual critique. Once everyone had their individual critique, the images were then projected for the class to view with critiques coming from all 3 instructors. My images will be on the web site. You can find them here.

After we had the individual and group critiques we then had another presentation on by Jerry on his work and followed that with a short session on panoramic shooting and how to then stitch the photos into one larger image. Hopefully you will see an update tomorrow with one of those included.

We went to Ghost Ranch yesterday and had an option of 3 different paths to take which would provide different photo opportunities. Since I wanted to try the panoramic shots of New Mexico – you could get panoramic shots on the others as well, just not as much they said, I went for the 1.5 mile hike.

Well, there is one thing I forgot to consider – the altitude which I have still been trying to get used to. We are at just over 7,000 feet. There are still some people working to get used to it as well, especially those of us from near sea level. I didn’t make it to the top, but got some good pictures anyhow, or at least I think so. I took over 200 images and have already whittled them down to 113 that I will start narrowing down to my 20 and then work with an instructor today to get to the 5 and then the best one.

My macro lens came yesterday and I took some macros following the guidelines of the shots for today, just on a smaller basis. We were also to keep in mind what we had learned from Monday. So we shall see what happens.

Carlan, the instructor who did my first critique, gave me some additional time and I showed him my water drop picture. After asking me about it, he asked why I was wasting it on a desktop background. This was one that was definitely worth framing. He said that he would give me some additional time to review other photos since I had not been able to go out to the web at the school yet. I have downloaded them this morning and will have them and my other photos available for review with him today.

Ghost Ranch was where Georgia O’Keefe spent two summers painting. The first summer she was the invited guest of the original owners of Ghost Ranch. The second year she returned without having told the owners that she wanted to return. She showed up the second year and they said that they had given the house to someone else for the summer. On learning that, she drove over to the house and told them who she was and that they would have to move out so that she could live there for the summer and paint again. Surprisingly enough, they actually moved out.

Her last home she purchased from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. But it was only after going to them every year for ten years that they sold her the land. I guess persistence pays off.

After spending over 2 hours at the ranch, we boarded the bus to head back into Santa Fe. We stopped at a restaurant called Gabriel’s which specializes in Southwest and Old Mexico cuisine. We had an option of different types of fajitas. They also made fresh guacamole table side which was outstanding! The fajitas were very good too!

We did not get back to the hotel until after 9:00 pm last night and we had been told that if we downloaded our images onto our computers we would not need cameras for the morning session as we would return to the hotel before our next assignment. It took over an hour to download all of my images and now I must start the evaluation process. So that is all for today, but check out the images below and their stories!

The email version will be shortened since I am just editing the web site directly to get the information on the web with images now. Doing it on my local system and then uploading has not worked since the connection is pretty slow.


This was one of the first shots that I did as I thought that the shadows from the gate were very interesting. Something that I had not really done before, but Robb had challenged us to try new things, so here it is!	These are the stairs that I talked about yesterday. Carlan, my first review had said that for this assignment he is tough since he lives here and sees this all content all the time. His first comment was somewhat of a surprise that I had gone into the chapel since you have a small fee to pay. His second was that he had not seen the stairs done from this perspective before. This was my pick of the day.	Carlan was also impressed with the way that I had framed this shot from across the street. This shows two forms of southwest architecture, the church and the top of the image which I still do not know what they call the decorative work.

This shot of the windows was one that I liked and this got a good conversation going between Carlan and I as he started explaining the concept of numbers and how they should work. I told him that I had been a floral designer in a previous life to working at Microsoft and knew numbers from that point. He then explained it and composition in photography and how it is similar to floral design which I had not considered before.

I am not sure if it will come out in this image on the web, but in the windows there is the clear blue sky reflected/tinting them as well. He was impressed with the way that the blue showed as well. The windows from across the street were also a plus!

This shot got Robb's special comment about the night shot. There were not many of us that did any night photography, so we got bonus points on that!

Both Robb and Carlan thought that this was an excellent photo, and Robb said that if he was being picky - which he would later in the week - that this should have been tilted more.

The tilt was not intended, but I had been trying to steady myself for the slow shutter speed and this was just the result of an attempt to do a night shot and I kind of liked it.

This is an edited version of my favorite shot that did not make it into the top five in the individual critique. The night shot was taken instead.

I cropped the sides of this shot to remove some of the sun to give the hallway more depth which I had though I could do before the reviews, but there was not to be any editing of shots as they all had to come perfect - or as perfect as possible - from out of the camera. But, I still liked this shot a lot, so you get to see it.

Each of the instructors did an overview of their work and what got them into photography as part of their introduction.

The instructor Robb Kendrick is the primary instructor and is a contributing photographer to the National Geographic. He has recently submitted 3 story ideas to the National Geographic and expects to hear this week if any of them are accepted.

When submitting story ideas, he must do all of the research and prepare a detailed summary of what the intent of the article is, where he expects to take it and many other areas that were very fascinating.

His passion is wet-plate photography which was the style of photography in the mid 19^th century. He showed some of his images that he had scanned in to Lightroom and they were all of cowboys in different regions. As part of this he has started incorporating audio interviews of his subjects as part of his work.

Robb will have an article in the November National Geographic that he had submitted and approved. Be sure and read it!

Jerry Courvoisier is our technical instructor and is an expert in Photoshop and Lightroom. He just had a book published on the integration of these two products. I picked it up at the bookstore on campus and will get it signed by the end of the week.

Carlan Tapp is our local expert and is also a photographer who worked with Ansel Adams! He told the story of how he first started out with Ansel and it was very funny! He worked with Ansel for 3 years as his assistant.

He is a documentary photographer and still does most of his work on film as he is frequently away from electrical sources and other conveniences when on assignment. But, the rest of the time he does do digital photography and has a project that he is working on now.

The project is called The Power of Authority. This is documenting the effects of the Four Corners coal burning generators on the Navajo people. He has been working on this project for four years so far and it is being used in several lawsuits at this time. The work and information was very impressive.

Once we had seen their work, Jerry did an overview of the digital camera and how to achieve different effects. While he is the technical expert in Photoshop and Lightroom, the goal of the class is to make sure that we get everything correct in the camera and do not have to “fix” things as much in post production work.

Once we had lunch and continued with some technical training, we all got on the bus and headed back to the hotel where we had ten minutes to drop anything off to our rooms that we did not want to carry for the rest of the day. The suggestion was that we carry only our camera and one lens for the day. Most of us went with that suggestion, although there were a few that carried an extra body and/or lens. Me, I opted for just the one lens for the day.

Our assignment: photography Santa Fe. Okay, that was pretty broad and wide open assignment. We did a short walk around the plaza, learned some of the history about the plaza and the Governor’s Palace which is more of a museum now than anything else. They asked if we had any questions regarding the assignment and no one had any questions which seemed to surprise them, so they then turned us loose on an unsuspecting city!

I teamed up with Valerie from Washington, DC. We had connected earlier in the day. Most people seemed to go off on their own, but we thought we would do it together. It was really hot and we both thought we would sit and just watch things for a while at an outside café. Well, the idea was good but no outside cafes in the shade so we just started walking and taking pictures as we went. We both saw different things which was good.

We went to the Cathedral Basilica which is under renovation as it prepares for its 400^th Anniversary. The building is amazing in the way that they have incorporated the traditional elements into the liturgy of today. No flash photography is allowed in the church, but I did manage to get a few good images – at least I think so, have not seen them on the computer yet.

We then walked around the plaza some and met up with Diana who is from Spain. She wanted to join us so we then went to the stairway chapel as it is known.

The stairway chapel was originally founded by the Sisters of Loretto from France. The chapel is modeled on a church in France whose name escapes me right now.

At the time that the chapel was built, the only way to the choir loft was via ladder. This was typical for the time as most choirs were men and they could climb a ladder. But the chapel was for a girls school and the nuns would not climb a ladder and did not want the girls to climb a ladder.

As the story goes, the sisters had a novena to St. Anthony the patron saint of carpenters and on the ninth and final day, a man showed up and said that he would build a staircase to the choir loft. The chapel is very small and a traditional stairway would have taken to much room so he built a circular stairway. What makes this one so unusual is that there are no supports to the stairway. It makes two complete 360 degree turns with no support. After building the stairway, the man just left, did not seek payment and did not ask for any accounting of the supplies he used to build the stairway.

When he built it, he did not provide a banister to the stairway. They have a picture of what they believed it looked like at the time that it was built. Two years after it was built the sisters hired another carpenter and had the banister that we see today added to the stairway.

The chapel was offered to the Archdiocese in the 1960’s, but for some reason they did not want it. So the sisters put it up for sale to the public. It was purchased by a private individual who did not want to see it torn down, so it has been made into a museum which it currently is now. I took a number of pictures in here and some of them turned out pretty nice when viewing them from the back of the camera.

We then headed back towards the hotel as Valerie wanted to pick up her tripod. By this time it was about 6:00 PM. We have now been shooting pictures for over 3 hours and walking around up and down small streets for over 3 hours! We did stop once for about 20 minutes and had some more water, but we were still taking pictures around where we were sitting.

When we got back to the hotel we ran into two other people who had quit for the day. We all asked how many pictures that everyone had taken. One person, Brenda, had only taken 41, another person had taken 181, I looked at my camera and had saved 87 of the ones that I had taken as I had deleted some that just did not turn out at all. Others had taken in the same neighborhood as I had.

Valerie, Diana and I had decided to go to The Shed for dinner which was about 2-3 blocks away and we would do some more photography as we headed off that way. We got to the restaurant but there was an hour wait if you did not have reservations! So, off we went again!

We had passed a pizza place when taking pictures earlier and since one person was hungry for pizza, that was the decision. So, more pictures in route to the pizza place. The sun was starting to go down, but there was still some good light as we headed off to the restaurant. We took a short cut and would up behind the restaurant and what is claimed to be the oldest house in the US. It is obviously made our of adobe and where the stucco has come off you can see some of the original bricks and walls. Very neat!

We had dinner and then tried taking a few more pictures of the Mission San Miuqel Church which we had done earlier. But it was dark now and we wanted to try some night photography. No one was having much luck, but we were all too tired to think and it became a group project as we had now been taking photos for almost 7 hours! Who said that this would be so much work!

I am writing this early Tuesday morning before we all meet up and head back to the campus where the workshop is.

This morning we will have to review all of our images, rate them and take them down to 20 images, and then take that final group of 20 down to 5 which we will have to present to the instructors and just select one image as our image of the day!

The goal is that we will have one image from each day and then on Friday we will present these at the final dinner/reception of our work for the week. So, in one sense, taking a lot of photos is not a good idea as you have to pair it down so much, but yet you still want a very good group to pick from.

After we do the selection of our images and get feedback from an instructor on our work, we will then head out to the Ghost Ranch for another day of photography and will stay out there to get the sunset. Then we will have a group dinner tonight and not come back to the hotel until around 9:00 pm tonight. That is after we start the day at 7:45 today!

Today we will need tripods and multiple lenses! And we will have to carry all of this with us for the day since we will not be coming back by the hotel. That also includes a jacket and any other necessities that we want for the day!

I should mention that the campus we are on is shared with a cloistered monastery of Carmelite Sisters. While some of you may question the word monastery as it refers to sisters in this case, it is correct since they are Carmelites. I have never understood this, but that is the way it is with Carmelites!

The grounds where we are are very nice, but so far I have not made it to any other part of the grounds. They say that we will have time later this week. We can take pictures around the grounds, but not of the one extern sister. We are not even to ask her to take her photograph, but we can talk with her. Hopefully I will get some pictures of the grounds before the end of the week.

The trip started this morning at 4:00 am when I got up to get things ready to go. Everything was laid out, but not packed. Of course, Rob helped with that part of things since he is the better one at packing.

We got a little late start heading off to the airport, but we got there in plenty of time and made the flight with no problems. But, the flight did arrive a little late, but since I did not have to be in Santa Fe until 3:00 to register there was no problem.

Just let me say one brief thing about drivers in New Mexico – they are just out and out rude! Not only are they rude, but they are terrible drivers. One lady was driving closer to me at 65 (speed limit started at 60 and then went to 65) I was doing 65 and 70, then I have ever seen anyone following another person. That does not count the person who was driving on the shoulder of the road to get ahead of traffic that was stopped for construction. And down here, they seem to average 15 MPH over the posted speed limit.

On arriving, I missed the turn into the hotel, but they had a sign that said the lot was full, so I went in search of additional parking, but there was no such thing. So in I went and found a number of empty spots.

The room was not ready, but it was past lunch time so I went in search of a restaurant and still had time to kill, so with all of the great shops, of course I had to go exploring.

The artwork here in Santa Fe is just incredible! The second store I found had Southwest Christmas ornaments! What sort of luck is that? Of course a few of them had to leave the store with me. One of them is made out of a gourd that can have a light placed in it. It was the only one of three non Native American artists in the store. Go figure!

I did stop in several of the art galleries and they have some incredible art work! One place that stood out was a folk art gallery of work from Poland. I had to go in there and check things out as well. They had your typical Russian carved Santa selection and other pieces along that vein. That was one totally unexpected store!

I have already have met a few people from the workshop. There is one older couple who live in Colorado Springs, a man living in San Diego who is here on a work assignment from South Africa. Other attendees include 1 each from Russia, Spain Britain and 2 from Mexico. Of course there are others from all over the US.

I had planned on uploading images to the web site, but the hotel does not appear to have internet access in the rooms, so I will check it out as I had planned on uploading some images from the shoots each day. Perhaps I can do that from the workshop itself.

For today I still have a cocktail hour and dinner with the first class after dinner this evening.